Siege #1-#3 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

I accidentally bought the third issue of this series, thinking that I had already bought the first two issues.  I hadn't, but I decided that I might as well.  Given how many "Secret Wars" tie-in issues that I was reading, I figured that I might as well add another one.

Despite my love for Kieron Gillen, I can't say that I was particularly taken with anything that he does here.  We're introduced to Abigail Brand as the Woman on the Wall, orphaned when a breach in the Shield 30 years ago leveled Breakworld (she was nine years old) and widowed (as such) when the Beast was lost to the Annihilation Wave.  Her sole allies are Leah, her second-in-command that leaves her to find her lost love, Illyana, and Major Summers of the Eternal Summers, leader of an army of clones that Baron Sinister sent to the Shield when he realized that he had no use for them.  Kang replaces Leah after she departs, and his bravado is undermined when a future version of him (of course) appears to warn them that Thanos will breach the Shield in 20 days.  Over the next 19 days, we watch Abigail and company defeat a series of threats, including the return of Nick Fury (her predecessor) as part of the Ultron Perfection.  Illyana and Leah return to lend a hand, revealing that they actually simply wanted to be rulers so they decided on taking over a sub-domain of the Deadlands, since it's the only part of Battleworld that Doom doesn't rule.

Along the way, Gillen attempts to show us how the people on the Shield are a special sort of person and correspondingly share strong bonds with each other.  But, he never really sells it to me.  We see flashes of this sort of camaraderie -- like when Leah leaves Abigail to find Illyana or when Major Summer is touched when Abigail orders him not send in any more of his "good men" to needlessly die -- but somehow it never fully assembles into the esprit de corps that we're supposed to feel.  Instead, I think that he does a better job getting across the futility of the struggle at the Shield, or, as Abigail tells Kang when he first arrives, of hoping that on Monday you merely knock the enemy into Wednesday.

In other words, it's not a terrible series, but I'll admit that I don't really feel like it adds all that much to the main story or tells all that interesting story on its own merits.  If you're an Abigail Brand fan, you'll probably dig it, but, otherwise, I think you can focus your money elsewhere.

** (two of five stars)